advanced physical exam and diff dx

Nursing Students NP Students

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Could anyone point me to an existing thread or give any advice or additional resources for this class?

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Thank you! do have any advice or references for the lab portion as well?

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Specializes in Family Medicine, Medical Intensive Care.

Just as the previous poster, I used Bates' for learning the physical exam. For differential diagnosis, I've been using this book:

Advanced Health Assessment & Clinical Diagnosis in Primary Care, 5e: 9780323266253: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

Bates' comes with online access to videos to help you learn the physical exam. The key to learning the exam is repetition, repetition, repetition. Find whoever is willing (e.g., friends, co-workers, family, etc.) to be your practice patient. If your school has a simulation lab, see if you can use it for practice. Not having my own personal otoscope and ophthalmoscope, using the school's simulation lab with my check-off partner was definitely helpful in learning to use those tools.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

Thank you so much for these suggestions! I'm taking advanced patho starting next week and we have to do weekly case studies...some these include discussing differential diagnoses which I haven't even learned yet. This is my first class in the NP program!

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What program are you in turnforthenurse, BSN?

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.
What program are you in turnforthenurse, BSN?

I will be attending UTHealth (Houston) part time.

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Specializes in Medicine.

Dranger, thanks for the info I love the Bates textbook but didn't realize there was a pocket guide.

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Specializes in Critical Care and ED.

I highly recommend this book. I had all the Bates ones but I found this book the most useful. I did really well in this class because of this book.

[h=1]Assessment: A 2-in-1 Reference for Nurses (2-in-1 Reference for Nurses Series)[/h]

Assessment: A 2-in-1 Reference for Nurses (2-in-1 Reference for Nurses Series): 9781582553191: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

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I appreciate this post, thank you to the original poster.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

Bates is a great physical exam resource, as is https://meded.ucsd.edu/clinicalmed/

If you have access (and in my opinion it is worth it to buy as a student), UpToDate has excellent differential diagnosis information at point of care.

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Most hospitals have Uptodate. If you register an account at work you can get it free at home. you save like a 1000 bucks lol.

Its the go to for hospitalists to be honest, more so than the Mass Gen Hospital Pocket Medicine book. Although I like that one too.

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